Eric Lu, a 27-year-old pianist from Massachusetts, won the International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition, becoming the first American since 1970 to receive the top honor in a contest regarded by some as the Olympics of classical music. - Washington Post
Alan Fletcher took the helm at the festival and school in 2006, oversaw the construction of the $80 million Bucksbaum Campus, and established several new education programs as well as (with Renée Fleming and Patrick Summers) the Aspen Opera Theater and VocalARTS program. He retires at the end of 2026. - Aspen Public Radio
String player and early music specialist Kivie Cahn-Lipman writes about how — when given the right parameters and prompts — ChatGPT helped him decipher the, um, idiosyncratic handwriting of the scribe in a 17th-century manuscript which he simply couldn’t figure out on his own. - Early Music America
That may be an ideal, but the reality is more complicated. The orchestra receives a subsidy from the government, typically reported to be around 15 percent, and is described in its official biography as “Israel’s premier cultural ambassador.” - The New York Times
“Heyward, 33, signed a three-year contract guaranteeing that he will preside over Maryland’s largest cultural organization through Aug. 31, 2031. … Heyward will donate $120,000 —a portion of his annual conducting fee — over six years to ‘support programs that nurture emerging talent and educational initiatives.’” - The Baltimore Sun (MSN)
Tensions still exist between London and Manchester, and not everyone is pleased. The ENO's artistic director says, "“The way this happened was not something that anyone involved would want, and we were then forced to build the road as we drove the car.” - Manchester Evening News (UK)
That is, focused on the music - and out of the hands of predators. Not that she’s rewarded for it, aside from helping other people get some forms of justice. - Washington Post (Yahoo)
Participants in the International Chopin Piano Competition “train as if they were elite athletes, with superhuman focus and skill, preparing hours of music, even though many of them end up performing only a fraction of it.” - The New York Times
Labour’s plans are designed to target Amazon-style warehouses, with the cash raised going to lower the business rates for smaller high street businesses. But many concert halls will also be forced to pay “millions of pounds” more to the Treasury. - The Standard
“(Her) infectious creativity has made Amy O’Neil’s work for The Dallas Opera a must-watch. From her fun, punchy synopses of upcoming productions to her award-nominated series ‘Don’t Look Under the Wig,’ she says her work is aimed at making the opera feel (less intimidating and) more accessible.” - D Magazine (Dallas)
Businessman Henry Lee Higginson, who founded the Boston Symphony and was lead funder for its then-new venue, made what was then an unprecedented decision: he hired a Harvard physicist as an acoustical consultant (and followed the man’s advice). The concert hall that resulted is still considered one of the world’s best. - WBUR (Boston)
The open-air concert venue in Fairmount Park has been given a “substantial” grant from the Pennsylvania insurance company Highmark to support a renovation project to be completed by next spring. The new name: Highmark Mann Center for the Performing Arts. - The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
When Charlotte Symphony music director Kwamé Ryan saw the orchestra’s newly-redesigned logo, he thought the CSO should have a musical equivalent — like NBC’s three chimes, Netflix’s “ta-thump” drumstroke, or T-Mobile’s five-note ringtone. So he commissioned Bates, who had “never been so excited to write five seconds of music.” - The Charlotte Observer (Yahoo!)
The British conductor is the first person ever to win Gramophone’s Artist of the Year award twice. The Record of the Year prize went to the Pygmalion/Raphaël Pichon release of Bach’s Mass in B minor. Awards were made in 17 additional categories. - The Guardian
